One thing I wanted to write but forgot:

Faster speed means you get information faster, and thus it's possible that you'll also get less distracted and bored as compared to a slow talk. Well of course it also depends on how interesting the material is.

Also, podcasts are made at the speed at which the hosts are able to think & speak. But this doesn't necessarily mean that the same speed is the limit at which you can comprehend speech.
--------


Haha, it's so funny to hear japanese girls talk with the pitch 6 tones higher XD

Is there any studies or proof that this might actually be helpful or hamful to speed up the audio?

Also, concerning speed, there is programs out there that will increase the speed without changing the pitch to disable the 'chipmunk' effect. Most won't do it on the fly though, but they may have come out with a program or two that does like Cubase or Sonar plugins.

I tried out of curiosity and everything my brain managed to process wasthisnamelyporridgehowicallit. That's it. Suppose for beginners it is more helpful and productive to *slow* down audio.. which helped me, compared to jettyke's proposal and method to be honest. also inserting 4sec. silence (for shadowing) is doing a good job btw.

KMDES Wrote:Is there any studies or proof that this might actually be helpful or hamful to speed up the audio?

Also, concerning speed, there is programs out there that will increase the speed without changing the pitch to disable the 'chipmunk' effect. Most won't do it on the fly though, but they may have come out with a program or two that does like Cubase or Sonar plugins.

why yes there is. kmplayer does it
i used it before to listen to my teacher's lecture for school in 45 minute sintsead 1 hour or however long...

play on kmplayer press f2 ->audio processing->basic audio filters

then you select enable pitch scaling i think... well you know check stuff till the pitch is the same

How coincidental...

I believe slowing down works well for the beginning phases but later on, having it in it's normal speed is key(just as natives listen to japanese)

howtwosavealif3 Wrote:

zachandhobbes Wrote:not to mention most japanese music leaves a lot to be desired...

that's is so notrue. you're just not trying hard enough to find GOOD japanese music. i'm sure it's very difficult with english music too ( i wouldn't know but i do know i hate mainstream top 40 english songs in america)

jettyke Wrote:What do you mean ?

Sorry guys. While it's true I haven't spent a TON of time looking for Japanese music I like, the ones I like seem to be very few and far between. It's sad because 75% of Japanese music that I find that I like ends up having english vocals or is instrumental, which we all know wouldn't be helpful for practicing listening.

I have really extremely picky taste, much more than probably most of you here. I'm not saying you all like top 40 jpop but seriously, my musical tastes are pretty specific. I like the genre of neo-soul/ soul hip hop / jazzy hip hop (NOT RAP, NOT TYPICAL GRUNGY HIP HOP, ETC) that is extremely rare even in America, where it was born, not to mention Japan. Like I said when I do find music made in Japan of the genre I like, it USUALLY has english vocals. Rarely do you find Japanese vocals on the types of songs I like. I believe the reason for this is most music producers who do this type of music in Japan collaborate with Americans who have experience in this rare genre. My current music library which I have accrued over the course of 3 years now is about... 200 songs large and 95% of is English. This may seem low which means I just don't look for music a lot but that is not true - I am subscribed to 5 different online music blogs that post music related to what I like, I'm just way too picky to like most of the stuff they put up.

That's why I have such a problem.

If anyone likes my type of music then by all means PLEASE tell me if there are Japanese sources of this music. But do not just tell me that I have not tried, because I have tried to find such music and have come up with perhaps 5-10 songs total.

Fair enough. Considering your situation, I think it is highly unlikely you are going to need to understand music outside of your chosen genre in the near future and, likely, understanding other forms of music will come as a side thing of learning Japanese from other forms of media.

off topic
One thing that I would like to say though, perhaps as a written form of my own observation, is that the learning doesn't always need to be enjoyable. This is not directed at you Zach, but, perhaps, is something I hear a bit from others. It is perhaps something that is a left over of the AJATT approach...

You actually learn best from things that threaten your life, which isn't fun at all. :o

@KMDES Lol, gotta have some of those resources! Hook me up.

Cranks Wrote:@KMDES Lol, gotta have some of those resources! Hook me up.

Fly to Japan right now! You'll come back fluent in no time!

KMDES Wrote:You actually learn best from things that threaten your life, which isn't fun at all. :o

true but no need to do so

When I listened to this video, one idea popped into my head.

If this guy had more experience with English, he would be able talk at least 1,5 or 2 times faster.

But listening to him is partially a waste of time + boring.

Transcripts/listen/read/listen more and more(seriously). That's what I've been doing pretty much for the past year in terms of my listening skills. It's worked really well.